Facebook’s New ‘Collections’ Feature Flirts with Ecommerce

By EXCLUSIVE Insights TeamMarch 24, 2017

TOPICSFeatured, Insights, Mobile, Social Media

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Facebook is betting that there’s a budding ecommerce market tied to video ads on its platform. The wager has come in the form of a new feature called “Collections,” which allows advertisers to attach specific products to video ads that appear in Facebook users’ news feeds.

A big selling point of Collections is that it allows customers to buy a product on the spot. The format would look like a video at the top of the ad, with four products below.

Early screens of the Collections feature. The middle image illustrates what buyers would see on their end.

When users click on one of the products in the Collections ad, they’ll be brought to a webpage where they can directly purchase that product without going through Facebook’s purchasing system. Retailers can pick and choose which four products to include in each Collection ad, or Facebook can automatically pull popular products.

Also being introduced during this rollout is a new Outbound Clicks metric. This metric tracks the number of people who visit a website from a corresponding Facebook ad.

As mobile starts to overtake desktop, ecommerce stores are looking to develop the mobile ad portion of Facebook ads. Collections would be a great way to build that mobile presence.

An ad approach such as Collections is another big step by Facebook to increase mobile shopper share. When it comes to making a purchase directly from mobile, Facebook is the clear social frontrunner.